What You Don’t Hear on Wednesday Morning

[0:04] You know, it was about 2 a.m. when I realized the lobster trap murder case that I covered wasn't what I thought it was. [0:12] I'd been reading court documents for hours. The victim, the assumption that got him killed, the violence of it. But then I got to the transcripts about the woman, the accomplice, who got dragged into this. She wasn't a criminal. She was trying to help a friend, or maybe someone she thought she had a relationship with. The documents made it clear. She had no business being involved in any of this. But she made bad choices in a moment of misplaced loyalty. And those choices destroyed her life. That's the part that hit me. Not just the murder itself. Though you know there's always tragedy in every murder but how someone who should have never been part of this story became central to it how quickly life can unravel when you make the wrong choice at the wrong time for the wrong person and for me. [1:19] That's just sad. And that's what you don't hear on Wednesday mornings when the podcast comes out. The research moments. The surprise in the documents that change how you understand a case. The human complexity that makes these stories more than just crimes. So this week, instead of a case, I'm pulling back the curtain. Showing you what goes into an episode, why I approach these stories the way I do, and what's coming next. [1:55] Hi, I'm Steve Rode, and this is True Crime Cases You Haven't Heard. [2:04] So let me tell you where this approach comes from, because my background isn't typical for someone doing a true crime podcast. I spent a couple of years as a police dispatcher And that means I took emergency calls I heard people in crisis I heard witnesses And I helped coordinate emergency response in real time, When you've taken those calls yourself You hear 911 transcripts differently, You notice the gaps and the delays And the moments where communication broke down And you understand why seconds matter. [2:41] Before that, I spent time in morgues. And then I was a surgical assistant and an eye bank technician. And I've been in the room with victims. I've seen what violence does to people. Not in photographs, not in reports, but in person. That experience shaped something fundamental. [3:04] Victim dignity isn't abstract to me. It's not a talking point. It's a responsibility. I take seriously, because I've been in that room. I've also been an investigative journalist for 30 years, specializing in financial crime. That's where the documents obsession probably comes from. Looking at records and documents and corporate filings and court documents, I don't trust summaries. I trust reading it and understanding it myself. I want to verify everything against primary sources. I worked as a surveillance photographer for law enforcement. I know what it's like to document evidence, to watch and to wait and to capture the moment that matters. And my pilot background gave me the clearance to fly over crime scenes and accident sites and search and rescue operations. My call sign was Fire Demon 1. And that's still how a lot of people in the aviation world know me. [4:12] Here's something else I learned from Search and Rescue The debrief is sacred, After every mission, we'd sit down and talk about what worked and what didn't I'd write it up, Not to blame anyone, but to get better To save more lives next time, You learn the most by acknowledging the failures, the communications breakdowns, the protocol gaps, the moments where things went wrong. That's the approach I bring to every case. Respect for the people doing difficult work and honesty about where the system failed. I'm not telling you any of this to impress you, but so you understand where this approach comes from. These experiences shaped what I notice and what I think matters and why I can't do this work any other way. [5:08] One of the reasons I do this show is to make sure victims have a voice. I don't focus on blaming the perpetrator. My curiosity is understanding how did this all ever happen? [5:23] For the earlier podcast episodes, I had segments in which I used an AI voice for a character I named Dr. Patricia Wells, a series criminologist. I got some feedback. At least one listener, Todd, didn't like it. And he told me. And I thought about it. You know, I think he was right. So, Dr. Wells got fired. But don't worry, she took it well. And what you hear now, my voice, my narration, that's 100% human. That's me. No AI involved in that part of the show whatsoever. Just me trying to tell these stories in the way they deserve to be told. So how do I choose which cases to cover? First, the case has to be complete. Investigated, prosecuted, sentenced. I don't cover ongoing cases. I don't speculate about cases still in the courts. That's not what this show is about. [6:39] Second, I can research it in a week, maybe a week and a half if it's complicated. But if a case is going to take me a month to research, I can't do it. I need to stay immersed. I need to live in that case and to think about it constantly. And I dream about it. And yes, I've learned not to take my laptop to bed anymore because I'll get hooked on transcripts at 2 a.m. and never sleep. [7:08] Third, variety. Now, I try to mix it up. I mean, one week it's going to be a murder, and the next week it's a kidnapping, [7:16] and then maybe a financial crime. I don't want every episode to feel the same. And here's something else that I do that's probably a bit unusual. I provide all the source documents for every episode on the website. The court records, the trial transcripts, what I can use to research. I share that with you. Whatever I use to research the case, I give it to you. Why? Well, transparency. You shouldn't have to just trust the media. You shouldn't have to just trust a show. You shouldn't have to just trust me. If you want to verify a claim, dig deeper into a detail or see the evidence for yourself. It's all there. And I make it available to you. And I think that's what separates documentary storytelling from speculation. Hey, the receipts are public. [8:14] Once I choose a case, the real work starts. I'm reading hundreds, sometimes thousands of pages of documents, court filings, trial transcripts, reports, FBI affidavits, witness statements, evidence logs. I cross-reference everything. If a witness says something happened at 9.15 p.m., I check what I can to verify. And then I build timelines and character maps and scene breakdowns, and I organized the mental gymnastics of who was where, when, doing what, and why it matters. The 45-minute episode you hear on Wednesday mornings, somewhere between 20 and 60 hours of work, depending on how complicated the case is. Some cases come together fast. Others don't. And then I write the script. And this is where the cinematic approach comes in. Every scene has to answer five questions. Where are we? When is this happening? Who is involved? Why does this matter? And how does this advance the story? It's basic place-time characters motion-motion. [9:28] That framework keeps me honest. It focuses specifics and it makes, hopefully, you feel present. And not just informed, but immersed. And then there's the music. I don't use music to manipulate emotions. I use it to support the narrative. Slow piano for victim impact moments. Driving percussion for investigation sequences. Silence. Complete silence. When the weight of a moment needs to speak for itself. Every music cue is intentional. Every tempo choice matches the pacing of the content. Every silence is there for a reason. [10:14] Music isn't background noise. It's emotional context. You can imagine what it would be like talking about a criminal scene with polka music in the background. That would be a giant miss. [10:28] The music has to match the gravity of what you're hearing. When I'm scoring a victim impact moment, I don't want music that tells you how to feel. I want something minimal that supports the weight of the moment without manipulating it. When investigators are closing in, the tempo drives forward because that's what the story is doing. [10:55] And sometimes, complete silence. Because some moments are too heavy for any music at all. Every tempo choice, every instrument selection, every decision about what to use and when to use silence, those aren't technical decisions. That's storytelling decisions. They're about honoring the emotional truth of what happened and what you're hearing. And it's just me I research it, I write it, I record it, I edit it, I select every piece of music I choose every sound effect, time every pause, finding the right tempo, the right emotional tone To support each moment without manipulating it, That's work I didn't even get into here. [11:45] And then there's the editing. Recording a 45-minute episode might take me, I don't know, two or three hours. Editing that same episode? Two days, maybe more. Because what you hear is the polished version. What you don't hear is me stumbling over a sentence six times trying to get my cadence right. The takes where I lose my place in the script and the moments where I flub a name or a date and have to start over and yes, the swearing and there's a lot of swearing that never makes it to the podcast, every pause you hear was intentional every music cue time to the second every transition smoothed so you don't notice the cuts, and that's what editing is It's making 20 or 30 takes sound like one seamless conversation, It's meticulous, it's tedious, and it's essential Because if you hear the mistakes, if you hear the rough edges You're not immersed in the story anymore, You're distracted by the production And that's not fair to victims, to the story, or to you. [13:03] When it's just me, I can verify every claim. I can cite every source and make sure every victim is treated with the dignity they deserve. So that's why I pass on cases that don't have the documentation I need, even when they're compelling. That's the trade-off. Fewer episodes, but each one documented the way I think you deserve. And look, nobody's perfect, and I am not perfect. and sometimes I miss things and sometimes I get a detail wrong and have to issue a correction. And sometimes the case I thought would be incredible turns out to be thin once I dig into the documents and that's just part of the process. These are cases you haven't heard, not because they're not compelling, not because they're not important, but because many of them are complicated. They require nuance. They demand documentation, and they resist easy answers. [14:02] And those are exactly the stories that deserve to be told properly. [14:13] So what's next? Well, let me tell you about a couple cases in the pipeline. There's a case involving emergency response, a situation where 911 system failed, where the delays cost someone their life, and where every protocol that should have worked didn't. I'm still verifying documents on that one. Who knows if it'll ever make it to the air. And then there's another case that caught my attention. This one involving institutional protection of a predator. Someone who operated openly for years because the institutions that should have stopped him actively protected him. The court records are damning, but we'll see if the story winds up complete enough to be told. Each of these cases is different. They're different crimes, different systems, different outcomes. But they all share something. they're overlooked, they're complicated, and they don't fit into a neat, simple narrative. And they all matter. What I'm trying to do with every episode is honor the people, tell the whole story. Not just the sensational parts, not just the headline-grabbing moments, the whole story. Like you saw in the Instagram TikTok murder episodes. [15:37] Victims aren't background characters in their own stories. They're people with lives, with families, with dreams that got interrupted or destroyed. And I show you, hopefully, a little bit of who they were and why their loss matters. And all perpetrators aren't necessarily monsters. They're people who made bad choices. I don't excuse those choices, and I don't minimize the harm. But I show you how someone gets from point A to point Z, and what the escalation looked like, and what the warning signs were. For example, the Kansas Banker Crypto episode that I did. Good example of this. [16:21] Systems aren't abstract. They're made of people making decisions, and I show you where those decisions went wrong. Where protocols failed, and where institutions prioritized the wrong things. Look, I've seen it firsthand. And survivors, when they're part of the story, aren't victims frozen in trauma. They're people who endured something terrible and are hopefully finding a way forward. I try to honor their courage without exploiting their pain. [16:55] And that's what I hope you take away from the podcast. Not just the facts of a case, not just the dramatic moments, but the understanding that comes from seeing the complete picture. [17:10] And you know what makes this worth it to me? Okay, it might be a little selfish, but it's those driveway moments. You know, people and friends contact me through the website or email me and tell me they had to sit in their driveway to finish an episode. They got home, turned the car off, but they couldn't go inside yet. They had to know what happened. They had to hear the end. And those messages mean everything to me Because that's when I know the work connected And that's when I know the story was told the way it deserved to be told And that's when I feel like I'm doing a good job, It's not about the vanity metrics or the downloads It's about the moment when you're so immersed in someone's story That the rest of the world can wait five more minutes. [18:07] This podcast actually started on my website, tapyournews.com. But it's going to get its own home at truecrimeunheard.com. And while that will take you to the show now, it's going to be getting its own home. So I'm busy building that. And then there's the email list that I ruthlessly maintain. And people who sign up but don't open the emails, I'm sorry to say, they don't last long on the list. I am ruthless. I consider people on the list to be people that want to know and not just ignore these victims. Well, the email list is where I send case updates twice a week, Tuesdays and Saturdays, on cases I'm tracking or thinking about, developments and ongoing investigations, new information that comes out after an episode airs, context you won't get anywhere else. And if you want to go deeper than a Wednesday episode, well, that's where it happens. [19:16] And not everyone is on the email list. A lot of people have subscribed or followed on whatever platform they're listening on now. Whether it's Apple Podcasts or Spotify or YouTube or some of the others. If you're listening, be sure you hit that follow and subscribe button. It's important. And that's how you get notified when the next episode drops. And speaking of going deeper, I also do three good news podcasts every single weekday. One for Wake County, North Carolina, one for Montgomery County, Maryland, and one for Fairfax County, Virginia. You see, I focus only on good news in those shows because people need an option other than the typical media doom scrolling. You can find those at tapyournews.com if you want to know more. You know, it's kind of ironic that I do both good news podcasts and a true crime podcast. [20:14] But I see them both the same way, good storytelling that results in appreciation of the truth. I think these stories have power. The power to teach, the power to reveal patterns, the power to show how systems work and how they fail, the power to honor people who deserve to be remembered properly. And that's why I do this work. That's why I take the time to get it right. [20:39] And that's why I think documentation matters. why verification matters, and why treating victims with dignity always matters. Because these stories, your story when you're part of one, deserve to be told with integrity. [20:58] Thank you for listening. Thank you for caring about these cases, and thank you for being part of what makes this possible. I'll be back next Wednesday with a case you haven't heard. True Crime Cases You Haven't Heard is research written and produced by me, Steve Rode. If you found this behind-the-scenes look valuable, I would love to hear from you. Your feedback helps me understand what matters to listeners, and you can reach me through the show website at truecrimeunheard.com or if you're on the email list, you can reply to any email and I'll get to see it. Don't forget, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you never miss an episode. And if you think someone else would appreciate the work we do together, you and me, hey, share it with them. [21:52] Thank you for listening. and as I ended many radio communications when I was flying as Fire Demon 1 let me just say see ya.